Johnny Hornby’s T&P has been relatively free of the upheavals rocking owner WPP but now one of its bigger accounts, NatWest, is moving its integrated account to IPG.
IPG pitched against WPP after earlier talks with Publicis (which handles Santander globally) and Dentsu.
IPG’s Initiative was already in the NatWest tent, handling media since 2021. T&P (formerly The & Partnership and beginning life as Clemmow Hornby Inge) has handled creative since 2019. T&P is famed for its client retention record having survived multiple British Gas reviews.
NatWest says: “We are very proud of the work we have delivered with our partners, T&P and Initiative, but we believe now is the right time to shift gears to a future-ready agency model that will help deliver on our growth ambitions.
“In today’s fast-moving consumer and media landscape, we want to build stronger, more differentiated brands and do this in a way that drives simplicity and gets us closer to the customer. An integrated agency model will help us do just that, combining creative, media, data and technology to better reach our customers with more personalised and contextualised marketing.”
It’s not clear which agency will be handling creative. IPG is about to merge with bigger US rival Omnicom and some of the two holding companies’ creative networks are likely to be merged. The biggest are currently McCann at IPG and BBDO at Omnicom.
